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[dreamaker]

  BO said, we will be going to mars by 2030. Someone explain to me, how does it benefit the American Tax Payer, and what do we gain from it???? They spend Billions on something that does not benefit us in any way. I can only see two things, One! Bragging Rights, And most important, Spending Tax Payers Money to go to other planets or moons to find precious metals or valuable materials for the wealthy industry on our DIME!!

[DirtyDan]

If we as Americans don't get there some else will

Dan

[Alberta Patriot]

If we as Americans don't get there some else will

Dan

That is Elon Musk's venture...let him raise the capital on wall street.

[MP]

  BO said, we will be going to mars by 2030. Someone explain to me, how does it benefit the American Tax Payer, and what do we gain from it???? They spend Billions on something that does not benefit us in any way. I can only see two things, One! Bragging Rights, And most important, Spending Tax Payers Money to go to other planets or moons to find precious metals or valuable materials for the wealthy industry on our DIME!!

There were lots of technological advancements brought on by the space program.  I would assume there would be more with this one.  Now, if it is enough for the cost, I do not know.

[Jess from VA]

Simple solution, not one penny for space (or a lot of other things) until we have a balanced budget, and a surplus to waste.     (DOD and other intel/defense satellites or the like not included)

Should only take 250 years or so. 

[baldo]

Simple solution, not one penny for space (or a lot of other things) until we have a balanced budget, and a surplus to waste.     (DOD and other intel/defense satellites or the like not included)

Should only take 250 years or so. 

Like this?

http://www.factcheck.org/2008/02/the-budget-and-deficit-under-clinton/

[dreamaker]

If we as Americans don't get there some else will

Dan

What you said makes no sense!  What is the advantage of spending billions of tax dollars to leave this planet. How as tax payers, does it improve our way of life. How does American Gov arrogants crossing the finish line make our life better?  Correct me where I and confused.

[cookiedough]

If we as Americans don't get there some else will

Dan

What you said makes no sense!  What is the advantage of spending billions of tax dollars to leave this planet. How as tax payers, does it improve our way of life. How does American Gov arrogants crossing the finish line make our life better?  Correct me where I and confused.

I have said this same thing since day one back in the 70's growing up watching while in grade school the launches into space thinking it was cool and all, but where that billions could have been spent elsewhere here on earth.

Am sure you will get on here a few space employees who think otherwise, but the average American sees NO benefit.

[ricoman]

agreed, no benefit
and Columbus should have stayed in Portugal
and Lewis and Clark should have stayed home too.

[mike72903]

Really good link Baldo.  Just goes to show what a president with the guts to make the wealthy pay their fair share can do and how "trickle down" economics otherwise known as VooDoo economics is nothing more than a scam against the average American.  I'm looking forward to the same result Under HC.

[Jess from VA]

Simple solution, not one penny for space (or a lot of other things) until we have a balanced budget, and a surplus to waste.     (DOD and other intel/defense satellites or the like not included)

Should only take 250 years or so. 

Like this?

http://www.factcheck.org/2008/02/the-budget-and-deficit-under-clinton/

Which shows it CAN be done.

[dreamaker]

The few space employees are not paying for it, We ALL are. If our military, our elderly citizens, reason able health care premiums, and so on, is taken care of first, then fine go for the sky.  Lets through another waist of money to through into the mix. Spending millions of dollars, wasted on digging up 65 million year old bones, which have been done before.  How does that benefit the public tax payer to increase their quality of life. The head bone head gives money away like a drunken sailor to everybody specially over seas.

 Here is a new one I just heard on TV, that really fried my butt.  It's called "Man Tax" it is to off set, what is called the "Pink Tax" that women pay for their products. Because woman's product that cost more, they are going to penalize men because companies cheating the women.

[baldo]

Simple solution, not one penny for space (or a lot of other things) until we have a balanced budget, and a surplus to waste.     (DOD and other intel/defense satellites or the like not included)

Should only take 250 years or so. 

Like this?

http://www.factcheck.org/2008/02/the-budget-and-deficit-under-clinton/

Which shows it CAN be done.

 

[baldo]

Really good link Baldo.  Just goes to show what a president with the guts to make the wealthy pay their fair share can do and how "trickle down" economics otherwise known as VooDoo economics is nothing more than a scam against the average American.  I'm looking forward to the same result Under HC.

Thanks....

Easy to understand, straight forward.

[Mr Whiskey]

agreed, no benefit
and Columbus should have stayed in Portugal
and Lewis and Clark should have stayed home too.

I'm with ya Brother!
Most of what's wrong with the world today is young men have no accessible frontiers.
Take volunteers & I think you'd be surprised at the turn out!
It's not about Americans, it's about the human race,
& for those that wanna PB&M about the cost, I personally find pretty much all sporting events & televised "entertainment" to be a much more offensive waste of resources!

[DirtyDan]

More space more life

No space no life

Dan

[dreamaker]

Dan, I am not trying to be rude to you, but you just don't make sense to me. See!! First off we should spend our tax dollar to get our planet back in shape, so it stays habitable for us. Clean the earth for growing healthy food, not profitable food, have safe drinkable water, not a chemical and waste dumping area, and plenty of green to give us good breathing air like we had when we were children not all concrete gardens.  We have a huge junkyard floating over our heads, just waiting to come down on us, you hear about things streaking through the air every once in a while. They say it is perfectly safe, it will burn up before it will hit the ground, of course our Gov and the scientist never make mistakes, do they. Couple of issues concerning an "O-Ring and also pure oxygen.  Look I am NOT a save the whale or a tree huger, but I try and have good common sense. My feels are, digging up bones and graves and going into space, is one big national ego trip.  Like I said, if we have the spare cash, go for it, but clean up our own backyard before we go into someone elses.

[Willow]

More space more life

No space no life

Dan

I understand you, Dan.  I don't necessarily entirely agree with your points but they seem to be succinctly expressed.

MP's post above is most meaningful.  Much of what we enjoy today has resulted from the technological challenges offered and met by the space program.  I've no problem with continuing to experience those advances and benefits.  Much of this thread is occupied by folks spouting about something of which they have little or no understanding.

There are many places I would personally choose to spend our nation's funds differently than do our elected officials.  The United States space program is probably not one of them.

[3fan4life]

Without the space race, we wouldn't have personal computers, smart phones or the internet and many othr things that we use everyday to make our lives easier.

Therefore, the money wasn't just wasted.

If our government wouldn't be so wasteful and careless about how they spend "our" money it would go much farther.

Remember $400 toilet seats?

[Gryphon]

"And the meek shall inherit the Earth"; the rest of us are leaving.   

[dreamaker]

Without the space race, we wouldn't have personal computers, smart phones or the internet and many othr things that we use everyday to make our lives easier.

Therefore, the money wasn't just wasted.

If our government wouldn't be so wasteful and careless about how they spend "our" money it would go much farther.

Remember $400 toilet seats?

Correct me if I am wrong on this, but my understanding was the first PC was made by Xerox, and I guess still sitting in their basement, but a bunch of knuckle heads in a garage got together and put together a functional unit. We know them as Apple, they collectively created a program called Visacalc and introduced it to the accounting world, as a database type of a program, which became the basis of all databases of it time. Then IBM heard about it, and considered it's potential and got on board, but being they were so anal and red tape orientated, they had one of there engineers built the first one in his basement, using off the shelf parts.  Then they got Bill Gates to develop and refine Basic, and there was another I think OS2, not sure on that, but Bill said screw this and cut ties with them and went on his own, and so on. So here we are!!  Keep in mind one thing!  Some of the most amazing inventions in the world we use today,were created in someones garage mostly in the US. In in some cases under direst, big business and for national security reason (Ya Right!!) got scooped up by our Gov and developed and refined and credit when to Gov.

[Moonshot_1]

  BO said, we will be going to mars by 2030. Someone explain to me, how does it benefit the American Tax Payer, and what do we gain from it???? They spend Billions on something that does not benefit us in any way. I can only see two things, One! Bragging Rights, And most important, Spending Tax Payers Money to go to other planets or moons to find precious metals or valuable materials for the wealthy industry on our DIME!!

What do we gain from it?

Knowledge. Knowledge from a perspective that cannot be gained from Earth.

That said, a country $20 trillion in debt cannot engage in such things.
And to engage in such a mission just so we can say we did it is just as ridiculous.

What we can do at this time is to make a rather modest investment in the infrastructure needed for private efforts to launch from. We are doing that now to a certain extent. Government involvement is necessary to ensure safety and standards for the industry.

If we ever get control of the debt and have the opportunity to spend on such missions they need to go something like this.

The goal is to colonize Mars.
We start by sending non manned efforts to set up food stations on Mars. Terrariums that would grow edible plants in the Martian soil. All remote controlled planting, watering, etc.
Determine if it works. Send up multiple efforts in different locations.
Determine what works and what doesn't
Send up the next improved stations.
Continue until it can be determined if growing food on Mars is feasible.
If it is, move on to the next phase of locating water sources on the planet.

Then, when we determine that it would be feasible to colonize the planet, and only then do we consider sending manned missions up to Mars.

[dreamaker]

 BO said, we will be going to mars by 2030. Someone explain to me, how does it benefit the American Tax Payer, and what do we gain from it???? They spend Billions on something that does not benefit us in any way. I can only see two things, One! Bragging Rights, And most important, Spending Tax Payers Money to go to other planets or moons to find precious metals or valuable materials for the wealthy industry on our DIME!!

What do we gain from it?

Knowledge. Knowledge from a perspective that cannot be gained from Earth.

That said, a country $20 trillion in debt cannot engage in such things.
And to engage in such a mission just so we can say we did it is just as ridiculous.

What we can do at this time is to make a rather modest investment in the infrastructure needed for private efforts to launch from. We are doing that now to a certain extent. Government involvement is necessary to ensure safety and standards for the industry.

If we ever get control of the debt and have the opportunity to spend on such missions they need to go something like this.

The goal is to colonize Mars.
We start by sending non manned efforts to set up food stations on Mars. Terrariums that would grow edible plants in the Martian soil. All remote controlled planting, watering, etc.
Determine if it works. Send up multiple efforts in different locations.
Determine what works and what doesn't
Send up the next improved stations.
Continue until it can be determined if growing food on Mars is feasible.
If it is, move on to the next phase of locating water sources on the planet.

Then, when we determine that it would be feasible to colonize the planet, and only then do we consider sending manned missions up to Mars.

First part! Knowledge!! The way I see it is if knowledge can not be physically applied by the most, I don't see the advantage. I see it as being paid for by the most, but being benefited by the few. The dept. I worked in, I was one of the few that didn't have PhD. after my name, so I go the feel on how they think, they came up with the theory and I made it real.  Now the other part at the bottom, you describe as to be benefit to industry and not so much for the most, the people paying for it.   Although I maybe wrong!!!!

People think education make you smart, not true!  You make you smart, educations is only a big tool box for life and makes your abilities simpler to apply.  Thing is, you can have a big tool box, but if you don;'t know how to apply your tool then you are just chasing you tail. SO, if you acquire a bunch of interesting knowledge and can't be applied by the most, then again you are just chasing your tail. Our taxes should benefit the most and not benefit the few.

[Stitch_in_La]

Find out finally what the face on Cydonia is.
Stitch

[3fan4life]

  BO said, we will be going to mars by 2030. Someone explain to me, how does it benefit the American Tax Payer, and what do we gain from it???? They spend Billions on something that does not benefit us in any way. I can only see two things, One! Bragging Rights, And most important, Spending Tax Payers Money to go to other planets or moons to find precious metals or valuable materials for the wealthy industry on our DIME!!

What do we gain from it?

Knowledge. Knowledge from a perspective that cannot be gained from Earth.

That said, a country $20 trillion in debt cannot engage in such things.
And to engage in such a mission just so we can say we did it is just as ridiculous.

What we can do at this time is to make a rather modest investment in the infrastructure needed for private efforts to launch from. We are doing that now to a certain extent. Government involvement is necessary to ensure safety and standards for the industry.

If we ever get control of the debt and have the opportunity to spend on such missions they need to go something like this.

The goal is to colonize Mars.
We start by sending non manned efforts to set up food stations on Mars. Terrariums that would grow edible plants in the Martian soil. All remote controlled planting, watering, etc.
Determine if it works. Send up multiple efforts in different locations.
Determine what works and what doesn't
Send up the next improved stations.
Continue until it can be determined if growing food on Mars is feasible.
If it is, move on to the next phase of locating water sources on the planet.

Then, when we determine that it would be feasible to colonize the planet, and only then do we consider sending manned missions up to Mars.

You have the begining of a very good Sci-Fi novel there.

Man sends androids to colonize and cultivate Mars so that man can live there.

The androids decide that they like life without man and declare war on the entire human race.

[MP]

Kind of curious as to why you started this thread, dreammaker?

You ask for reasons why. 

Several of us give you reasons why, then you argue and dismiss EVERYTHING that is said!

So, what was the point of asking, since it is obvious you will disagree with everything?

[Moonshot_1]

Ok. I didn't want to do it but I see I have no choice.

The AL GORE argument.

We have ignored his warnings. We have ignored his pleas.

Soon Global Warming will be reclassified as Global Heating and the world will be doomed.
We must now make plans to migrate to Mars as soon as possible.

We must borrow untold monies to add to the debt to finance this.

Then we will leave Earth and our debt behind!

So that's why we should go to Mars.

[dreamaker]

Kind of curious as to why you started this thread, dreammaker?

You ask for reasons why. 

Several of us give you reasons why, then you argue and dismiss EVERYTHING that is said!

So, what was the point of asking, since it is obvious you will disagree with everything?

First of all, “If you don’t ask the question, chances are you will never know the answer”. As you noticed people have different versions.   To keep it simple, so when someone comes up to me and takes a pile of dog crap and put whipped cream on it, and tells me it is chocolate mousse, that just may not be true, even though it looks like mousse,  correct. So being that we all can’t be right about everything, some of us, depend on your input to try and come up with a rational understanding.  And maybe not just say, that is the way things are, and live by that standard and leave it alone.  I guess for me it is about information gathering and creative thinking, and try and process what I have been told.  If I understood everything and know all the angles, I would not be asking the question.    Life is simple, people f… it up.

[John Schmidt]

I know they're working on a different propulsion system that will take approx. 6 wks to get there as opposed to the current time of many months. That would make a huge difference in the cost of transportation which is one of the largest stumbling blocks. And, since you're wondering what good can come of space exploration....this system is said to also have an "earthly" application. Wouldn't that be great, we might be able to use something other that dino fuel.

[TallRider]

Moonshot kind of got it right. Global warming but not due to humanity. The sun is doing it. They say eventually will expand as a dying star and swallow the earth. Man  needs to move on using the planets as a stepping stone, Mars than moons on Saturn  and so on. They say it will take 100 yrs to  Tera form Mars. Hey got to start somewhere.

[Firefighter]

How long has it been since our government elected personnel have concerned themselves with the benifit of the tax payer?

[Jersey mike]

Simple solution, not one penny for space (or a lot of other things) until we have a balanced budget, and a surplus to waste.     (DOD and other intel/defense satellites or the like not included)

Should only take 250 years or so. 

I like the idea of space exploration, I think we need to do it, it's in our genes to explore and push the limits.

I would really like to see a nuclear space craft to be stationed permanently in space. A craft that can last for decades and travel well past the speed of sound for many months at a time, the way our aircraft carriers are deployed at sea.

[TallRider]

Look up the Web site "Qpolitical". there is a video of Trump interviews from 1980 to today. May have a solution to your question. I tried to get the link but using my tablet and don't  always have much luck with that. Everything Trump is is in those interviews. No hype no media  spin on him or his true beliefs. This tape tells who he is.


How long has it been since our government elected personnel have concerned themselves with the benifit of the tax payer?
[/quote]

[Mr Whiskey]

You ask for reasons why. 

Several of us give you reasons why, then you argue and dismiss EVERYTHING that is said!

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